There's no trading Mercedes for sale. You have to narrow it down depending on what type of instruments you wish to trade (futures/stocks/options/currencies), domestic/international, daily data/intraday stuff, systems/no systems, etc, etc.

I am not a car man, but I do like my toys. One of my favorite toys are quads, good fun for the whole family and seeing as desert season is upon us, I'll relate trading software to quads.

For quads, I like the Honda, and use it on my hunting trips. A Honda will get you home, and when you are 50 miles from camp, in the middle of the desert that is important. The Honda of trading platforms is Redi+. You can count on it every day, it will get you home. And getting home in this business is synonymous with making money.

If you are looking for speed, like the Raptor 700, with pipe kit. That machines moves so fast you'll pop wheelies in third gear, that is one fast quad. Forget the commercially available stuff, you have got to go direct, that means fix, and creating your own software. No faster connectivity then fix, though requires one to have some knowledge of programming to get there. Half of my trading is through fix. I can't recommend any commercially available products, but may i suggest you look at the software reviews section.

For analytics, you need some thing that's agile, quick, and gets the job done. For quads, it the Honda 400 TRX, with pipe kit! It's fast, maneuverable, and has plenty of power, great for the dunes, and aggressive terrain. For analytics, tradestation has set the standards for years. Esignal is pretty good, and so is Trade Navigator. And don't let me forget TC2000, a nice program that is probably the best value out there for swing traders and offers a unique feature for those of us who perform our own analytics. Finally, and a newcomer to the game, though one with lots of potential, is TradersStudio, we might see good things to come from this new kid on the block, it's future looks bright. Each product has it's strengths and weaknesses, I have found that no one completely fits the bill for what I need, so I end up using several of them.

and for the post before that-- i am strictly equities, nothing else. nyse and nasdaq

Quote from mschey:

Since merging with Chrysler, Mercedes ain't what it use to be.

I am not a car man, but I do like my toys. One of my favorite toys are quads, good fun for the whole family and seeing as desert season is upon us, I'll relate trading software to quads.

For quads, I like the Honda, and use it on my hunting trips. A Honda will get you home, and when you are 50 miles from camp, in the middle of the desert that is important. The Honda of trading platforms is Redi+. You can count on it every day, it will get you home. And getting home in this business is synonymous with making money.

If you are looking for speed, like the Raptor 700, with pipe kit. That machines moves so fast you'll pop wheelies in third gear, that is one fast quad. Forget the commercially available stuff, you have got to go direct, that means fix, and creating your own software. No faster connectivity then fix, though requires one to have some knowledge of programming to get there. Half of my trading is through fix. I can't recommend any commercially available products, but may i suggest you look at the software reviews section.

For analytics, you need some thing that's agile, quick, and gets the job done. For quads, it the Honda 400 TRX, with pipe kit! It's fast, maneuverable, and has plenty of power, great for the dunes, and aggressive terrain. For analytics, tradestation has set the standards for years. Esignal is pretty good, and so is Trade Navigator. And don't let me forget TC2000, a nice program that is probably the best value out there for swing traders and offers a unique feature for those of us who perform our own analytics. Finally, and a newcomer to the game, though one with lots of potential, is TradersStudio, we might see good things to come from this new kid on the block, it's future looks bright. Each product has it's strengths and weaknesses, I have found that no one completely fits the bill for what I need, so I end up using several of them.

ryancohen, there isn't one product the magazines drool over or only the wealthy can afford so it depends on your needs. I love Ensign because I can't programme and it does just about everything I can imagine. It's not good for backtesting but I'm not a fan of backtesting. Great charts are useless if live support is poor and Ensign scores 10/10 here. I have direct access to the creator and both myself and personal friends have contacted Howard with requests/ideas that he has written into the software. Just about every week traders play a big part in shaping Ensign, hence if you look at the "What's New" section under "Downloads" at ensignsoftware.com you can get a feel for a product that is constantly evolving. But if you want to backtest or programme, look elsewhere.

what about bloomberg? is there any market information aggregator out there that can match the breadth of bloomberg's coverage? i haven't looked at reuters lately, but i wouldn't think they're up to par w/bloomy. here's who yahoo lists as bloomberg's competitors.